... a journalist: When are migrants integrated?

Photo: Andreas Labes

Apparently never. There are endless demands for integration, one never really becomes part of "us Germans".

If you meet all the criteria that in my opinion form part of integration - language skills, citizenship, profession, compliance with the law - you will be a well-integrated migrant afterwards. But woe betide you if you do something wrong: then integration will be denied to you once again. This will be handed down from generation to generation like an eternal debt. It never becomes something that can be taken for granted. That's why the promise of belonging feels fake.